She was almost there. Sansa couldn't quite picture her brother. The Young Wolf. He was now a leader. He'd brought their father's bannermen together, and commanded all those men. She could see them pouring over the countryside, forming and diverging and re-forming like ants. He'd outwitted the Lannisters more than once. She'd been so far from her family for so long, that the idea of being a Stark again was a strange, foreign thing. And she realised what it meant. That he would be leaving her.

They had ridden through patchy fields barbed with thistles and climbed the first hills only to find more, stretching away in front of them. And now the light was leaching from the sky, a gloomy, bruised purple. There was a scattering of buildings in the distance, dim white shapes.

It was a set of three farms, the paths up to them churned with festering mud. The stench made her nose wrinkle and she coughed. As they neared the first, an elderly woman in an apron and bonnet came out, leaning on a stick, and wrapping a shawl around her.

She peered towards them. 'There isn't much to steal here. I'd say you'd best try the next one along.' Her voice was feistily proud for such a frail-looking woman.

'Do you have a room we might use for the night?' Sandor asked. 'We'll pay.'

Sansa had never heard him speak so politely. It almost made her smile.

The woman took a step nearer to them, her eyes cloudy, her neck cricked as if listening very intently. 'How many are you then?' Stranger took a squelching step and she jerked back slightly.

'We're two.'

'Men?'

'Myself and a lady.' She pursed her mouth, as if considering. 'I've a room. It'll not come cheap though. I'm not in the business of taking in travellers.'

After using her fingers to examine the coins that Sandor had placed in her palm, turning them over and running her nail along the raised metal, the woman had shown them to a room. They'd passed an open door and glimpsed an old man, papery skin and very thin arms, lying on his back, unmoving. He had been staring up the ceiling, his toothless mouth agape. Their room was bare but for a small bed against one wall.

'My daughter's room,' the woman had said, fingering the door frame. 'She's dead.'

She had bid them come to the kitchen for some warmth, and served them half-bowls of a watery broth, potatoes and chives. She had softened when she heard Sansa speak, sitting up slightly straighter and becoming garrulous. She had talked and talked, about her children, and their farm. She hadn't seemed to know much, or care about, the changing kings. Her world was the rains that fell for months, and the grandchildren and their fortunes in smithyards or taverns.

Sansa had listened very earnestly, and asked questions. Sandor was sitting on a chair far too small for him, leaning it back against the wall on its back legs, and had watched Sansa the whole time. The woman began to relate all the winters she'd seen, and how she didn't think she and her husband would see the next one through. She said it quite cheerily, and Sansa bit her lip then, trying not to grin, and glanced at Sandor.

He gave her a watchful, slow smile, and held her gaze for some moments, before gradually tilting his head forward and pretending to go to sleep. Sansa glared at him and gave her attention back to the woman, who'd already gone onto the summers, and the crops they'd had in some of those golden seasons, and the names of all the horses who had pulled the plough, before her speech started to slow, and she stopped, mid-sentence, her chin tipping upwards, her mouth ajar. Sandor stood up very quietly, stretching. He took a candlestick from the hearth and lit it, and put his hand out to Sansa. They stole out of the kitchen, the low fire giving a last loud snap.

Sandor put the candle down on the floor near the bed. Their breath came in clouds as they faced each other. Wordlessly, Sansa moved her hands up to his shoulder-armour, and he looked surprised, but showed her, without really talking, how to remove it,and his mailshirt. He helped her out of her dress, and she took off her smock before he could begin help with her it. She didn't care anymore. Not about how she looked, or what her mother would think. She stood there, naked and shivering and looking up at him, expectant. Sandor went to take her to the bed, but she stopped him by tugging the material of his shirt at his stomach until it came free from his waistband. She put her hand underneath it at his back, touching the warm skin, and he flinched.

'Gods!' He tried to stay still as she stroked the base of his back. 'You're as cold as a white walker.' She put both of her hands there then, and slid them up to his shoulder blades. He pulled a face, a mixture of a grimace and a smile. 'And as cruel.'

Sansa smiled faintly and pulled his shirt over his shoulders, and he helped it over his head and stood there, trying to read her face, stroking her upper arm with his middle finger. She put her hands at the band of his breeches, where his waist hollowed into his hip, and began to draw it down, gently.

'Sansa.' He was slightly hesitant. She looked up at him, her fingers still there. She was hollow. She just wanted him.